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Yaseen Ali Ege was found dead at the family home Photo: Family picture

A jury has heard a harrowing video confession by a woman accused of murdering her son for failing to learn parts of the Koran. Sara Ege, 32, allegedly beat seven-year-old Yaseen to death with a stick and then burned his body in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

Ege made an emotional confession to the police within days of Yaseen's death at their home in Cardiff in July 2010.

A jury at Cardiff Crown Court listened in silence today as she described how Yaseen collapsed, still murmuring extracts from the Koran.

Asked why she had set his body on fire within minutes of his death, she said: "I was too nervous."

A sobbing Ege was allowed to leave the dock while the footage was shown to the jury.

In it, she described undressing Yaseen when he collapsed and soiled himself, then dragging him to the kitchen to feed him milk.

The boy was left lying naked on the kitchen floor, still reciting extracts from the Koran, as she poured him the drink.

He then took several sips before being dragged and pushed along a corridor to his bedroom and told to get dressed by his mother.

When he proved incapable, she dressed him herself and left him on a rug by his bed, saying she believed he had fallen asleep.

Ten minutes later, she returned to witness Yaseen shaking and shivering on the floor and gulping a final breath before dying.

"A greenish yellow liquid came from his nose and I saw that he was gone," she said.

Within moments Ege said she decided to burn his body and ran downstairs to get a lighter and a bottle of barbecue gel.

Ege, of Roath, Cardiff, later retracted the confession made to the police over several days in July 2010.

She denies a single charge of murder and a charge of perverting the course of justice.

Her husband, Yusef Ali Ege, 38, is on trial with his wife, accused of causing or allowing the death of his son by failing to act.